Contracts get the best of us. That includes the superstar indie developers at Polytron.

The team recently had to make a difficult decision regarding Fez and their customers:

Pay Microsoft “a ton of money to re-certify the game and issue a new patch.”

Re-release the previous update with an apology to those who’ve had their saves buried.

New to the story? Here’s a quick catch-up.

The Fez developers previously patched their game, fixing a whole slew of bugs but subsequently demolishing the save files of an elite few. It just so happened that the elite few were also those who were furthest along in the game.

In response, the patch was pulled and Polytron set out to work on a patch for the patch. They were presented with the above two options and decided to go with the latter. In doing so, they’ve raised a stink over how Microsoft does business and now lament their exclusivity contract with the company.

Polytron openly points to Steam as a better choice for indie developers, joining the likes of Team Meat in the process:

“Had FEZ been released on steam instead of XBLA, the game would have been fixed two weeks after release, at no cost to us.”

Once the exclusivity contract is up, I think we all know where Fez is headed. Thank you XBLA customers for beta-testing this game for us Steam gamers. Sorry for the hassle.